The news out of the Middle East is pretty grim these days. But it is possible to find some humor even in the midst of war. For that we can thank Kentucky Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes who told the Lexington Herald-Leader that the Iron Dome missile defense system protected Israel against terrorist tunnels.
“Obviously, Israel is one of our strongest allies in the Middle East, and she has the right to defend herself,” Grimes said. “But the loss of life, especially the innocent civilians in Gaza, is a tragedy. The Iron Dome has been a big reason why Israel has been able to withstand the terrorists that have tried to tunnel their way in.
Grimes’s challenge of Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s bid for reelection won’t be decided by either candidate’s stands on the Middle East. But Grimes, who has raised a large proportion of her campaign funds from out of state from large Democratic donors, is seeking to portray herself as being a supporter of the bipartisan consensus that supports the State of Israel. Saying you’re a backer of the Jewish state and a supporter of peace doesn’t require much background knowledge or grasp of the nuances of the conflict. But politicians with a tenuous grasp of foreign and defense policy can sometimes get themselves in trouble trying to pretend to be the equal of veteran policymakers like McConnell.
If Grimes is elected this November she probably wouldn’t be the only member of Congress who doesn’t know the difference between missile defense and tunnels, but being caught in a gaffe of this magnitude is embarrassing and leaves her open to satire. The Washington Free Beacon provided a graphic explaining Grimes’s version of Iron Dome that displayed how rockets fired above ground then enter the tunnel where they are then stopped by laser canons.
Of course, Grimes isn’t the first Democrat who didn’t understand the concept of missile defense. A whole generation of liberals that now extol Iron Dome mocked Ronald Reagan for his support of “Star Wars” technology that led to the system that has saved so many Israeli lives in the last month.
But the real lesson here is that rookie politicians make rookie mistakes especially when they don’t know what they’re talking about. If Grimes wants to raise money from pro-Israel donors by discussing the conflict in Gaza, she should take a few minutes to read up on the topic and learn the difference between up and down.